Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 854 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S4O-02724

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S4W-17086

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 September 2013
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Nicola Sturgeon on 12 September 2013

To ask the Scottish Government when it will make a decision on the location of the proposed national performance centre for sport.

I am pleased to inform parliament that following a detailed assessment of each of the three high quality bids received, I have today invited the bid team from Heriot-Watt University and the City of Edinburgh Council to take forward their proposals to deliver the National Performance Centre for Sport. The centre will be a crucial part of the sporting infrastructure and will support Scotland’s top athletes to prepare for competing on the international stage.

There can be only one successful bid, but such was the quality of the competing bids that I have asked officials to work with Stirling and Dundee to identify how they can be supported to help deliver improvements to the sporting infrastructure in their respective areas.

Question reference: S4O-02404

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 September 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 September 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what progress has been made on implementing an injury surveillance programme.

Question reference: S4W-16707

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Current Status: Answered by Alex Neil on 10 September 2013

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients have received (a) primary and (b) secondary fracture-preventing medications in each of the last three years, also broken down by (i) gender, (ii) age and (iii) NHS board.

Question reference: S4W-15809

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Current Status: Answered by Kenny MacAskill on 17 July 2013

To ask the Scottish Government, whether it will provide a breakdown of recorded religious hate crimes in 2012-13 expressed as the number of incidents per 1,000 members of each religious affiliation, also broken down by incidents recorded under section (a) 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and (b) 1 of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.

The reports titled Religiously aggravated offending in Scotland 2012-13 and ‘Charges reported under the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 were published on 14 June 2013 and presented information on the number of charges that were reported to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) by the police in 2012-13 under section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and section 1 of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012.

The following table shows religious aggravation charges that were reported to COPFS in 2012-13 for conduct which was derogatory to each religion under the two pieces of legislation. The final column presents the number of charges per 1,000 members of each, as recorded in the 2001 census.

It is important to note that reported charges only contain information about the nature of the offensive conduct and not about the religious affiliation of the victims of incidents. In 40% of charges, the victim of the conduct was a police officer and in 12% of charges the victim was a worker. This suggests that many of the charges were not directed towards members of religious groups and were more arbitrary in nature.

Table: Religious aggravation and offensive behaviour at football charges derogatory to religions in Scotland in 2011-12 per 1,000 members

Religious aggravation charges in 2012-13 [1]

Offensive behaviour at football charges in 2012-13

The religion that conduct was derogatory towards [5]	Number of charges [2]	Number of Members [3]	Charges per 1,000 Members	Number of charges [2]	Number of members [3]	Charges per 1,000 members
Christianity[4], [5]	592	3,294,545	0.18	104	3,294,545	0.03

of which:

Roman Catholicism	388	803,732	0.48	88	803,732	0.11
Protestantism	199	2,146,251	0.09	16	2,146,251	0.01

Judaism	27	6,448	4.19	2	6,448	0.31
Islam	80	42,557	1.88	0	42,557	0.00
Unknown	4	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	N/A
Other	3	N/A	N/A	0	N/A	N/A

Table notes:

1. Information on religious aggravations is taken from Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland 2012-13 and information on offensive behaviour at football charges is taken from Charges reported under the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012, published on the Scottish Government website on 14 June 2013.

2 The number of charges refers to the religion that the conduct was derogatory towards and not the number of charges where victims had the relevant affiliation. Information about victims’ religious affiliations are not recorded by the police.

3 Religious group membership information data are taken from the 2001 census. Available online at: http://scotland.gov.uk/publications/2005/02/20757/53570.

4 There are 5 charges in the Christianity total for religious aggravations charges that referred to conduct which was offensive to Christianity in general and were not directed towards Protestantism or Roman Catholicism.

5 Religious group membership data is based on self-reported affiliation in the 2001 census. Christian denominations are presented in the census under three categories: ‘Roman Catholic’, ‘Church of Scotland’ and ‘other Christian.’ For the purpose of this table only ‘Church of Scotland’ membership has been attributed as ‘Protestant’ because ‘other Christian’ may include a mixture of Protestant and non-Protestant denominations. As a consequence this may lead to an under-reporting of the ‘charges per 1,000 members’ in the Protestant category.

Question reference: S4O-02289

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 June 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to encourage golf tourism and what impact this will have on the west of Scotland economy.

Question reference: S4O-02109

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 May 2013
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 May 2013

To ask the Scottish Government what the results were of the recent ministerial visits to North America.

Question reference: S4O-02091

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 May 2013
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 8 May 2013

To ask the Scottish Government when it expects the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency to rule on the licensing of electronic cigarettes.

Question reference: S4W-14384

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Michael Matheson on 24 April 2013

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish its consultation on the future use of resources in light of the announcement by the UK Government of its closure of the Independent Living Fund from 31 March 2015.

The Scottish Government will publish its consultation on the future use of resources following the announcement by the UK Government to close the Independent Living Fund. Once there has been a decision by the Administrative Court in England, regarding the Judicial Review brought by five individuals claiming that the Department for Work and Pension’s consultation was unlawful. They have called for the decision to close the Independent Living Fund to be quashed.

At present, judgement has been reserved and following on from any decision, I will have to consider the best course of action. The judgement has the potential to greatly vary the landscape in relation to the future of the Independent Living Fund and its closure. Any decision made by the Court is likely to have a direct impact in Scotland and on our proposed consultation and I want to ensure that we consult at the right time.

Question reference: S4W-13929

Asked by: Stewart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Michael Matheson on 27 March 2013

To ask the Scottish Government when its new tobacco control strategy will be published.

The Scottish Government’s new Tobacco Control Strategy, Creating a Tobacco-free Generation, is being published on 27 March 2013. The strategy sets out a five year plan for action across the key themes of health inequalities, prevention, protection and cessation. In addition, following a UK-wide consultation, the strategy also announces the Scottish Government’s support for the introduction of the standardised packaging of tobacco products.

The strategy will be available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/tobacco.